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I still am completely confused at how professional editors at both Wired Science AND Gizmodo that must see loads of fake videos every day were unable to tell the video was a fake. Especially the takeoff had the obviously-CG look about it -- didn't it?

It is so strange that it makes me genuinely wonder whether they didn't actually realize it was fake and just wanted to generate controversy and page views.

On the other hand, even Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters said there was "nothing about the video that seemed fake" to him. Wha...? Seriously?

4 comments

> professional editors at both Wired Science AND Gizmodo

ah common, it's the internet trashiest sites, run by a bunch of hipsters, who never really seem to know what they are talking about. Okay maybe that's to harsh, but it doesn't really surprise me they fell for that.

I was just as baffled as you.

The only thing I can think of is that people want it to be true so badly that they don't really want to look for errors.

It's not like anything actually changes for most people. Judging wrongly carries virtually no cost at all.

If you're science editor for a media organisation, you shouldn't even need to look at the video to know that it's fake.

If you lack the elementary mechanical knowledge to immediately assert it's impossibility from the description alone, you are unqualified to do your job IMO.

I suppose there was that whole blag about an "exoskeleton" but that's no excuse. Occam's razor and all that.

Except that it's not an impossibility. There's no fundamental reason that we can't build electrically powered ornithopters. In fact, we've already built human powered ones.[1]

The description alone does not invalidate this. The concept doesn't invalidate it. If a science editor did dismiss this out of hand (without viewing the video), then I'd argue that they'd be far more unqualified to do their job than if they didn't.

The kinds of problems you have to deal with to make something like this aren't really documented on the guys website. That's a fairly good indicator that they've not actually done it. They came up with a fairly believable design concept (although never go into detail), but the control systems required to turn a man flapping their arm with accelerometers into something that can fly are very non-trivial.

There are a number of challenges you'd have to face before you could make something like this for real. Most would be control and aerodynamic related. Once you start flapping wings, things get very complicated very quickly. Most ornithopters that have been flown in the past have used fairly simple wing designs coupled with quite conventional airframe construction. The stability considerations for the kind of wing that this guy claimed to have made would be pretty horrendous. We've made big advances in active stability recently though, and the hardware required is very much a commodity now.

[1]: http://hpo.ornithopter.net/?q=content/the-project

It's impossible when it's human powered. Human arms aren't strong enough, you can't get the power to weight ratio needed, or however you phrase it.

I added in my comment that I hadn't originally noticed the powered element of it, but like I say, even then you should assume that it's fake, because which is more likely: A guy invented an exoskeleton capable of powering an ornithopter, and kept it under wraps until it was finished, or that a guy faked the video, something for which there is ample precedent?

So as a journalist you should assume that it's fake. A tiny bit of research would reveal the total lack of detail and backstory, confirming this view.

The video did not claim it was human powered. The previous videos on the youtube channel showed how they attached electrical motors to provide the lift. The arm waving was just the mechanism by which to tell the wings to flap.

Jamie said he would give it the benefit of the doubt.

But yeah, it did seem cg'ed to me when I first saw it. Only reason I even gave it a second look was because it was on Giz. Well, apparently, they don't even try to verfiy what they are publishing.

Well yeah, it's Giz. Sorry, but any "journalism" coming from Gawkmedia should be taken as fluff until otherwise verified.